Column: Notre Dame not chicken, just greedy

FILE - In this Sept. 22, 2012, file photo, Notre Dame's TJ Jones makes a catch against Michigan's Raymon Taylor during the first half of an NCAA college football game in South Bend, Ind. Nobody really knows how Notre Dame makes any of its decisions, though dropping a rivalry against the university that the Irish played their first football game ever against (Michigan) in 1887 would seem to be a mistake at first blush. (AP Photo/Darron Cummings, File)
— AP

FILE - In this Sept. 22, 2012, file photo, Notre Dame's TJ Jones makes a catch against Michigan's Raymon Taylor during the first half of an NCAA college football game in South Bend, Ind. Nobody really knows how Notre Dame makes any of its decisions, though dropping a rivalry against the university that the Irish played their first football game ever against (Michigan) in 1887 would seem to be a mistake at first blush. (AP Photo/Darron Cummings, File)
/ AP

The Irish are headed to the ACC with a sweetheart deal no other school could get, either. But it comes with a catch - ND must play at least five football games against ACC opponents each year, even as it retains its status as an independent.

The Notre Dame schedule is still loaded with big games because it is Notre Dame and that's what the alumni expect. But when you're so powerful you can pick and choose, there's no reason not to pick and choose.

"The math is pretty simple for us," Swarbrick said Wednesday at the ACC spring meetings.

It's not just Notre Dame, of course, that's messing with tradition. Conference realignments have either diminished or eliminated some rivalries, including the matchup between Texas and Texas A&M that stretched 118 years until last season. The frenetic search for every last dollar in the college arms race has forever altered football and basketball, and not necessarily for the better.

There is nothing pure about college football anymore; little left to separate it from the pro game except the players don't get paid. It's a business, and the best businesses are the ones that generate the most cash.

But the idea that Notre Dame is afraid to play Michigan is absurd, as Hoke himself surely realizes. Almost as absurd as saying the termination of the series is in revenge for Michigan canceling it in the first place in 1910 after, accusing the Irish of using ineligible players. Save for a couple of wartime games, the series didn't resume until 1978, so it's not as if the two teams have been battling each year since Michigan won the inaugural game in 1887 by an 8-0 score.

Yes, college football would be a better sport if Michigan and Notre Dame continued to square off every year. And, yes, Michigan probably had its feelings hurt by being summarily brushed aside by the Irish with little explanation.

But, no, Notre Dame didn't chicken out of a game with Michigan. If anything, what the Irish did was sell out to the highest bidder.

Unfortunately, this isn't 1887 anymore. And that's the way college football works these days.